I must have been very tired yesterday – I barely remember my head touching the pillow … to wake to my alarm going off at 7.15 am.
Another sunny and potentially very hot day beckons.
At 7.30 precisely, i hear a knock on my door. In comes the conductor and sets up the table with a few very precise motions and hands me my breakfast.
The bread rolls are super-fresh and the tea water is piping hot. This makes for a very nice breakfast which I eat whilst looking out of the window.
We’re already one hour late. This isn’t a problem per se – we are just shunted onto second and third priority tracks to make way for faster intercity trains … which makes us even later.
In the end we arrived at Graz main station with around 90 minutes of delay.
Our vehicle carriages were detached and brought to a far-off part of the train station. We all schlepped our stuff there and waited for our each of the vehicle to be ‘freed’ from the material that kept them in place during transit.
Far, far back, TW560 waited patiently for its turn .. and its owner to be called forward.
This is how it looked like from the TWIKE when I left the carriage.
Today, my plan is to drive southwards as far as I’m in the mood to. It’s around 50km to the Austrian border, then another 70 across Slovenia and then I’m planning on taking an eastward route along Hungary’s border.
First things first – let’s get out of Graz and into the beautiful small villages of southern Styria, where I’ve been so many times the last 20 years. TW560 has been to Styria, too, on many smaller adventures. (in other words, for pictures, go look there)
In no time, I reached the Slovenian border and entered one of the most underrated European countries. Beautiful landscapes, good food and friendly people – ’nuff said (also here: just search the blog for the many trips TW560 has been on here.
Thankfully, the landscape is hilly and the many small villages are interesting –
All of this is the reason why I’m in an extremely good mood – even the rising temperatures can’t do anything against this! (also, staying hydrated, covered in 50+ sunscreen and wearing a hat helps 😉 )
Outside of the villages, I cross many hills covered in forests on small roads – every little bit of shade helps!
Seeing the next set of hills makes the drive interesting and the time go by.
I reach the Croatian border in no time –
Unlike last time, there is no-one to stamp my passport present. Even if it looks impressive, the border crossing is completely deserted. There is even a large sign telling people not to stop and continue driving.
Croatia is pretty flat here – agriculture rules.
And – did I mention it’s hot? Very hot. I had to drink constantly.
There are a few things from my sphere of interests that I can mention: There seem to be statistically high numbers of German cars here. Some Swiss, too. Also, mobile networks are very slow and coverage is somewhat lacking.
Both of these things didn’t bother me much.
One of the things that needed getting used to is the fact that a typical Croatian village is basically a string of houses along the main road and when it grows, then it grows only along this one vector, not in width.
So, in essence, I was driving through one village with some space between them that hadn’t been built up yet. Very strange!
Also, rural Croatia has seen better times. Many buildings are in disrepair or collapsing. This bsides the usual ‘have been living in this house since 20 years, but since putting on outside rendering will make the taxes go up, I’ll rather leave the house in this half-finished state for ever’.
Nevertheless, from time to time I actually came across a beautifully renovated official building, so there must be some money available for keeping them up…and also EU funds for the roads: they were mostly OK.
Towards the evening, I decided that I would cross the hill range that was building up before me and then find a place to stay for the evening, as a) I was reaching 400km of driving today i.e. I’d have to recharge somewhere if I wanted to continue and b) I was getting really tired from all the heat.
The hills were a real treat and much higher than I had expected! A nice and quiet road without traffic took me all the way up to 600+m altitude and gave me quick reprieve of the heat and a preview of what my few days in Romania will be like. There, I’ll be going up to over 2000m!
For the evening I decide to stay in Slavonski Brod, Croatia, just across the river from Bosnia and Herzegovina. I find myself a nice little ‘Penzion’ with owners that let me charge for free. The room has A/C, which is the most important part, as it’s still 32°C at 8 pm!
As an IT security person, the WiFi access credentials had me smile.
I then set out to have some dinner – didn’t have to search for long! Around 500m down the road I was stopped in my tracks by an irresistible smell from a barbecue: I had to have Cevapcici with Lepinja bread … and lots of raw onions! What a treat after this long day!
So, how do the stats for today look like?
This stage was very flat and hot but still gave me plenty of time to unwind. Looking forward to tomorrow!